JFK’s grandaughter Tatiana Schlossberg dies aged 35, after documenting battle with cancer
Tatiana Schlossberg, the acclaimed writer and granddaughter of John F Kennedy has died at just 35.
The tragic news was shared by the social media accounts for the JFK Library Foundation, on behalf of Tatiana’s extended family and comes after she was given just a year to live by doctors.
‘Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” read the post, which was signed by ‘George, Edwin and Josephine Moran, Ed, Caroline, Jack, Rose and Rory.’
Just hours after giving birth to her daughter last year, the 35-year-old was diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia, a type of blood cancer, she says.
The environmental journalist wrote about her treatment in the New Yorker magazine on the 62nd anniversary of JFK’s assassination.
She says she was diagnosed in May 2024 after her doctor noticed her ‘strange’ white blood cell count in the hospital.
Her doctor told her that he can keep her ‘alive for a year, maybe’ during the latest clinical trial.
She wrote: ‘My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me.
‘My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears.
‘I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter—I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants.
‘I was gone for almost half of her first year of life. I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.’
Schlossberg also criticised policies pushed by her mother’s cousin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, in the essay, saying policies he backed could hurt cancer patients like her. Her mother had urged senators to reject his confirmation.
Who is Tatiana Schlossberg?
Tatiana is the daughter of former US ambassador Caroline Kennedy, 67, and Edwin Schlossberg, 80.
She has two siblings – a younger brother, Jack Schlossberg, who recently announced his bid for Congress, and an elder sister, Rose Kennedy Schlossberg.
Tatiana graduated from Yale and also received a master’s degree in US history from the University of Oxford.
She is a climate change and environmental journalist and the author of ‘Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have’.
After working for multiple publications, including The New York Times and The Record, she now works freelance.
What is myeloid leukaemia?
Myeloid leukemia is a type of blood cancer that originates from young white blood cells, specifically granulocytes or monocytes, in the bone marrow.
Adults and children can get it, but it is most often diagnosed in older people.
Symptoms are caused by too many abnormal white blood cells and not enough normal white cells, red cells and platelets.
These symptoms include: feeling weak or tired, a high temperature, bruising and bleeding easily, breathlessness, weight loss and more.